


stories in the stars

by queenhaggard



Category: Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-03
Updated: 2012-11-03
Packaged: 2017-11-17 15:54:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/553282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenhaggard/pseuds/queenhaggard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An entry from the diary of Catherine Earnshaw, circa November 1777.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stories in the stars

_From the diary of Catherine Earnshaw_ :

Can a day be both horrible and wonderful? I think it’s possible. I owe Hindley no thanks for the wonderful parts of it, though! That is all Heathcliff—but he was horrible, too—but I’m running on too fast. I must explain things properly.

Dinner was positively vile: a concoction of Frances’s whose origins I shudder to contemplate. She wanted to try cooking when she's barely ever done so before, the silly wretch! Heathcliff was equally repulsed; I would have known that even if he had not smiled when Nelly put his plate in front of him. We dared not look at each other! I had to bite my lips to keep from laughing in Frances’s face, or else from gagging—the food looked that beastly. But Hindley noticed Heathcliff grimacing and flew into a temper over it, saying that he should eat fat and bones on the floor with the rest of the dogs before he assumes himself too good for the food given him at the table. Then he struck Heathcliff round the ears. Oh! How I hated him for that—how I hate him for it still! I threw my dish to the floor in answer to his barbarity. Frances began wailing—a most helpful development, as it distracted Hindley long enough for me to seize Heathcliff’s hand and run out-of-doors through the back-kitchen, Joseph’s shouts chasing us as we fled.

It seemed as though we ran forever. The sun was just setting when we escaped, and by the time we stopped, no trace of it remained in the sky. The air was cold as anything, and the ground wet, but we lay down anyway and watched the stars. I refused to let go of Heathcliff’s hand. I could not bear to look at him, either, for fear that I would see a bruise on his face—I don’t know why the prospect should have horrified me then, when I have seen him hurt many times before; perhaps because the night was so clear, and the sight of his injury would have brought me even lower than I already was, too low to enjoy the stars.

“When I am older,” I told him at length, “I shall marry a good prince, and he will take us both back to his kingdom, away from here.”

He laughed at me—laughed!—then he sneered, “What makes you think that any prince would have you?”

I was so angry with him that I made to slap him for his heartlessness, but at the last moment I remembered his bruise and abstained. Heathcliff noticed my intention, though, and snickered again in that horrid, triumphant way he sometimes does. “See! You’re more a witch or a dragon than a princess. A prince should run screaming after beholding you,” he jeered.

“Why must you be so cruel?” I burst out. “It’s your own fault—I’m angry because you were hit! Heathcliff, you must promise me—you must do everything you can to keep from being hurt anymore, because whenever Hindley strikes you or Joseph boxes your ears, it hurts me just as badly, here.” I laid the hand still holding his upon my chest, right above my heart, and then set it back on the earth between us. “Do you see? Promise me, Heathcliff!” I demanded.

Heathcliff said nothing for far too long an interval, so that I was near bursting with impatience by the time he replied: “And what about when you harm me, Cathy? What shall I do then?”

What could I say to that? I am still uncertain. He was being unjust, and yet—when I opened my mouth to answer him, I could find no words. I would have cried to let him know how upset he had made me, but the tears would not come, either—I could only clasp his hand all the tighter and put my face against his shoulder, making the excuse that I was cold. I believe he took some small victory in my confusion, and that it cheered him, for he was almost kind during the remainder of the time we spent on the moor: he pointed to the stars and made up stories about them, stories even stranger than the Greek ones I have been taught—one was about a woman who had never learned to cry and a man who could drink only tears; another, which he allowed me to make additions to, was about a girl whose voice had been turned into a bird by an evil sorcerer, and who was condemned to chase it all over the world or never speak again.

Oh, but I wish I could remember more of the stories he told! Heathcliff was terse as ever, his stories piecemeal, but never before has such a mood struck him, that had him telling tales. That was what made today wonderful, even after Joseph found us there and scolded us hatefully, and we were sent to bed without supper (though better to starve than be forced to eat Frances’s slop, I say!). I still have not entirely forgiven him for his comments about my being a witch, but there will be time to pay him back for that later. Perhaps later he shall finish his stories, as well…


End file.
